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Chuck Freilich was a deputy national security adviser in Israel. He is now an International Security Program senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, where he has recently completed a first of its kind book on Israeli national security decision-making processes, Zion's Dilemmas: How Israel Makes National Security Policy (Cornell University Press, November 2012). His new book Israeli National Security: A New Strategy for an Era of Change will be published by Oxford Press in 2017.

Chuck's primary areas of expertise are the Middle East, U.S.-Middle East policy, and Israeli national security strategy and decision-making. He has taught political science at Harvard, NYU, and Columbia in the United States, and at Tel Aviv University and IDC Herzliya in Israel.

Chuck has appeared as a commentator for ABC, CNN, NPR, Al Jazeera, and various U.S. and Israeli radio and TV stations. He has been quoted in the New York Times and other media and has published numerous academic articles and op-eds.

Chuck was a senior analyst at the Israel Ministry of Defense, focusing on strategic affairs, policy adviser to a cabinet minister and a Delegate at the Israeli Mission to the United Nations. He was the executive director of two nonprofit organizations and served in the Israel Defense Forces for five years (reserve major). Chuck earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University. Born in New York, he immigrated to Israel in his teens.

2016

"Hillary Clinton is not an ideal candidate, as 30 years of political life and her mixed electoral performance have shown. She is, however, one of the most experienced candidates to run for office in decades, in both domestic and foreign policy, including the Middle East. Casinos and reality shows just do not cut it."

"Israel must continue building an effective offensive response. Victory and military decision are only achieved through offense, not restraint and defense. The Hezbollah threat has, however, been with us for a long period and will unfortunately remain with us for many years to come. A war postponed may be a costly war, but it may also be a war that never breaks out. In this case, an effective offensive response may be even more costly than the threat itself, and we should thus seek to postpone resort to it for as long as possible."

"The United States, certainly the Democratic side, has simply had it with Netanyahu's policies on the Palestinian issue, with his double talk, and with what appears to be an intentional attempt to bury the two-state solution. If the premier truly understands the United States, he knows that a moment of reckoning on the Palestinian issue is nearing and that whichever candidate is elected will likely present us with fateful decisions, or cool the tenor of relations."

2015

"Some critics incorrectly conflate AIPAC with the policies of the Israeli government and thus seek to promote their views by supporting alternative lobbies more in tune with their own thinking. This well-meaning but dangerously misguided approach fails to understand that AIPAC's fundamental role, as the Israel lobby, is to promote US-Israeli relations without regard to who is in office either in Jerusalem or Washington."

"A takeover of Syria by the self-proclaimed Islamic State or Syrian rebel groups would also prove dangerous. Heinous as it is, Bashar al-Assad's regime still has many assets to lose in a confrontation with Israel and can thus be deterred. It will take time for non-state actors to develop similar assets."

"As an unprecedented and recently published Israel Defense Forces document on national security strategy emphasizes, the primary threats Israel faces today all stem from radical Islamist organizations, such as Hezbollah and the Islamic State. They not only seek Israel's demise, but a transformation of the entire Middle East, threatening what remains of the regional state system...."

"..."[I]t is time for the Prime Minister to come to his senses and to understand that a small country, whose very existence depends today on the United States, cannot physically block a major presidential initiative. Instead, he would be wise to work with the American administration to close gaps in the agreement, maintain close intelligence supervision of Iran's observance of the agreement, and even to take advantage of this moment to try and reach an historic defense treaty with the United States."

When a nation's strategic environment, military threats, and society undergo fundamental change, it is time for a fundamental change in its national security doctrine. It is ths surprising that while the threats are increasingly disappearing, the defense budget continues to grow and a substantive change in the national security doctrine has yet to take place.

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